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The Secret
The Secret
This a wonderful book for anyone needing more positive thinking in their life. This book is about the Law of Attraction. That we all have the power to attract everything in our universe. Good or bad. It's about the way we live our life. If you're wanting great things to happen in your life it will teach you how to reach those goals. Highly recommend this book.

The Secret and The Scam
A friend of mine bought me this book for my birthday, explaining that it was a best selling spiritual read, so I was looking forward to what it had to say. I can honestly say I was unimpressed from the start. There was this build to this huge life changing 'secret' and it was like waiting for a huge explosion that never actually went off.

This whole Secret is based on wishful, dillusional thnking. It claims that if you want to have money, believe that you will have money and it will come to you. If you want to lose weight, believe that you're losing weight and it will happen. It rarely ever mentions that you have to put work in for these things to happen. In a good way this book does allow people to focus on what they want in life and to focus on the positive, but having a good life, having money and having good relationships requires some work on our part, not just repeating something in our heads and hoping the Universe will deliver. That's just lazy thinking. I gained a lot more from listening to Anthony Robbins CD's then I did from this book. And yes, I'm aware that he's in it for the money too.

This book also spent a lot of time advertising the film version, so there are a lot of people making getting rich from this book. Unfortunately it won't be the readers.

A Not So Believable "Secret"
Of all my book reviews, this one has been the most difficult to write. This book had many good quotes, ideas, stories, and personal anecdotes that supported the basic premise of the book (at least from the author's perspective). The only problem was that I did not buy into the basic premise of the book: that the universe is one huge energy field, and that through the frequency of your thoughts that you project out into the world, you create and control your destiny by attracting back to you the things that are on the same frequency as your thoughts (the Law of Attraction (like attracts like) in action on a grand and personal scale).

Some of the problems I have with the whole concept of the book include, but are not limited to: it promised everything to everyone, often appealing to selfish desires (like "acquiring massive wealth"); "The Secret" was cleverly packaged and presented in a way so that if you find you are not reaping the miraculous and universally readily-available benefits of "The Secret" as described, you are obviously not a true believer and the fault lies solely on you - you have not achieved the type of `enlightenment' that you need to make "The Secret" work for you; I got the distinct impression that the author tried very hard to diminish any belief in God by directly equating God to energy, and indirectly by frequently using the term "the Universe" in lieu of any appropriate spiritual or heavenly reference; and I felt like the author tried too hard (and too repetitively) to show how "The Secret" has been universally applied to all situations and circumstances, which came across as trying to justify or legitimize "The Secret."

On a positive note, there were more than enough good points and quotes throughout the book upon which to build a good, motivational, and inspirational character-refinement book. Some of the more memorable and thought-provoking passages are listed below.
-"Everything that has been invented and created throughout the history of humankind began with one thought. From that one thought a way was made, and it manifested from the invisible into the visible." (p 57)
-"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) (p 57)
-"All that we are is a result of what we have thought." Buddha (563 BCE - 483 BCE) (p 73)
-"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." Albert Einstein (1879-1955) (p 91)
-"Oftentimes you give others the opportunity to create your happiness, and many times they fail to create it the way you want it. Why? Because only one person can be in charge of your joy, of your bliss, and that's you. So even your parent, your child, your spouse - they do not have the control to create your happiness. They simply have the opportunity to share in your happiness. Your joy lies within you." Lisa Nichols (p 122)
-"What you resist persists." Carl Jung (1875-1961) (p 142)
-Praising and blessing equals love, and love is the greatest power in our lives. (p 151-153)
-"Erase everything from the past that does not serve you and be grateful it brought you to this place now, and to a new beginning. You have a clean slate, and you can start over - right here, right now...." (p 178)

If I had to rate this book on how well the author did in selling me on the book's basic premise, I would give it only one star. Solely due to the strength and value of some of the author's supporting arguments (taken independent of the points being supported), I chose to give it three stars, but I would be hard-pressed to recommend the book to anyone I know.

Allow it to change your mind
The Secret teaches the power of positive thinking. It shows you how to harness your abilities in achieving what you believe you can in this world. Not what you want, but what you are willing to go forward and achieve. It's a frame of mind that too few people can maintain for long and that's what's great about this book, it gets you to do just that. It's short, it's focused and it gets you going.

Another quickie I read this week that I strongly recommend because it changed my mind in a big way is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.

I'm baffled as to how this is such a best-seller
I got raving reviews from a number of my friends about the book so I decided to buy it. I read it and it was almost completely worthless. The authors say that if you imagine something is yours, magically it becomes so. This point is repeated over and over again from the first page to the last, with little of anything else in between. Waste of money, I wouldn't recommend it.